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Thursday, September 23, 2010

MY FAVORITE FOOD DAY

Yesterday was National Ice Cream Cone Day, which only comes around once a year, and hard to forget since ice cream is my favorite food. I've always said that it ought to have its own food group.

If asked about my favorite flavor, chocolate, of course. However, I really do like banana splits, with the vanilla and strawberry on the side of the famous center piece (chocolate). I'm also fond of hot fudge sundaes and Dairy Queen Blizzards. Like regular foods, ice cream can be fixed or served in many different ways. A good cold bowl of ice cream is the perfect touch at the end of the evening. That tradition started many years ago when my father quit smoking. He took up eating ice cream at night instead, and got me hooked on it too.

I used to eat a lot of ice cream cones with mint chocolate chip or rocky road flavors. That got me thinking about the invention of the cone. The most published invention of the cone dates back to the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair and credits Syrian immigrant Ernest Hamwi as its creator. A patent for the cone was finally issued in June 1920.

History said that there were several ice cream vendors and waffle vendors at the Fair. Arnold Fornachou, an ice cream vendor ran out of dishes in which to serve his ice cream and the vendor in the next booth, Hamwi, rolled a thin waffle to contain the ice cream - and the cone was born. Hamwi later opened the Cornucopia Waffle Company.

The cones were first called Cornucopia's, renamed cones in 1909. Many machines were invented to make various types of cones, such as waffle cones, sugar cones, and wafer cones, from 1909 on. By 1924, Americans were consuming 245 million cones per year.

I won't go into the history of edible ice cream containers invented in Europe, but they date back to the 1800's.

I'm just glad my dad quit smoking, for two reasons. He never had lung cancer and he introduced my taste buds to a wonderful treat that became my favorite food.